Monthly Archives: May 2018

Set to map the entirety of the global ocean floor by 2030, the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project has started operations, based on a seed money pledge of US$2 million-per-year from the Japan-based Nippon Foundation.

Officially launched during the United Nations Ocean Conference (5-9 June 2017) in New York, the project draws on the experience of international organizations and mapping experts under the coordination of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission(IOC) and the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO).

Having a comprehensive map of the ocean floor could assist global efforts to combat pollution, aid marine conservation, forecast tsunami wave propagation, and help inform the study of tides and wave action. It could also help in search and rescue operations, as in the disappearance of the MH370 Malaysian Airlines flight in March 2014.

Despite its obvious useful applications, detailed bathymetric data – the topography of the ocean floor – is still missing for much of the global ocean. More than 85% of the world ocean floor remains unmapped with modern mapping methods, and by any technological standards we know more about Mars than we do about the depths of the ocean.

Nanoparticles derived from tea leavesinhibit the growth of lung cancer cells, destroying up to 80% of them, new research by a joint Swansea University (UK) and Indian team has shown. The team made the discovery while they were testing out a new method of producing a type of nanoparticle called quantum dots. These are tiny particles which measure less than 10 nanometres. A human hair is 40,000 nanometres thick.

Although nanoparticles are already used in healthcare, quantum dots have only recently attracted researchers’ attention. Already they are showing promise for use in different applications, from computers and solar cells to tumour imaging and treating cancer. Quantum dots can be made chemically, but this is complicated and expensive and has toxic side effects. The Swansea-led research team were therefore exploring a non-toxic plant-based alternative method of producing the dots, using tea leaf extract.

Tea leaves contain a wide variety of compounds, including polyphenols, amino acids, vitamins and antioxidants. The researchers mixed tea leaf extract with cadmium sulphate (CdSO4) and sodium sulphide (Na2S) and allowed the solution to incubate, a process which causes quantum dots to form. They then applied the dots to lung cancer cells. Tea leaves are a simpler, cheaper and less toxic method of producing quantum dots, compared with using chemicals, confirming the results of other research in the field. Quantum dots produced from tea leaves inhibit the growth of lung cancer cells. They penetrated into the nanopores of the cancer cells and destroyed up to 80% of them. This was a brand new finding, and came as a surprise to the team.

The research, published in “Applied Nano Materials”, is a collaborative venture between Swansea University experts and colleagues from two Indian universities.

Paris trips Sea Bubbles up. These flying taxis, that are said to be tested on the Seine river by late September, will finally be tested in Paris in May-June 2018 and aim at making the Seine river a common means of transport so that you can cross the city of lights in less than 15 minutes!

Bertrand Lambert, Sea Bubbles inventor, announces to be able to navigate the Seine in May-June this year. The famous flying taxis have already been successfully tested last June.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENJOY THE VIDEO

For the record, initially planned for late September, Sea Bubbles testing have been postponed because of technical and regulatory constraints. On the one hand to improve the system enabling to make the driving available to everyone and on the other hand for speed issues. Actually, these machines can “fly” at a maximum speed of 32mph and cannot reduce it. Yet, the Seine limited speed is set at 7.5mph in the city center and 11.2mph outside. According to Voies Navigables de France (Navigable Waterways of France), a steadfast speed promises a great deal of discussions.

Finally, after months of negotiations, Alain Thébault, helped by Paris Authorities and the Ministry of Transport, is finally being authorized to navigate or “fly” at a speed of 15.53 mph.This new testing will be open to the public this time and last 2 months. Let’s fly over the Seine!

Called “Sea Bubbles”, these flying boats seem to come straight from sci-fi movies. Able to accommodate up to 4 passengers and one pilot, this new means of circulating is electric and rather simple to use.

In concrete terms, how does it work? Under each machine, there are wings propelled by two electric motors. When started up, they take off and lift but they still touch the water. Notwithstanding, the rubbing is reduced by 40% in comparison with a boat hull.

You have lost completely your arm. Now imagine…
Reaching up to pluck an apple from a tree. Confidently manipulating chopsticks to pick up small bites of food. Picking up and operating a heavy piece of equipment with ease, or Peeling a bananawithout bruising the fruit. All this is possible as the LUKEprosthetic arm can read nerve signals from muscle left after an amputation

You will be able to do some of these things the very first time you put the arm on, all with a level of comfort and integration never realized before due to the sophisticated compression and release design of the High-Fidelity interface.

Are you a good candidate for the LUKE Arm? Currently, the LUKE Arm is available for three levels of amputation: lower arm or trans-radial, mid-arm or trans-humeral, andshoulder disarticulation (this level does not use the High-Fidelity Interface). The company which sells the product, Next Step Bionics & Prosthetics is the country’s premier bionic and prosthetic provider for amputees, blending technology and expertise with a personal approach to healthcare.

If you are a veteran, the LUKEArm is covered in many cases by the VA. Other candidates may have access to funding depending on their particular circumstances. As a preferred provider of the LUKE Arm, the Next Step company answer any questions you may have on the arm and whether it is a good fit for your particular needs.

As one of the original development partners, Next Step has unique expertise in the fitting and use of theLUKE Arm. The goal is in helping patients get their lives back. To support the overall patient experience, an experienced, patient-centered team will ensure the strongest, most supportive patient experience. Customized physical and occupational therapy offered to the patients is offered in partnership with Catholic Medical Center.

The world is a big place, but it’s gotten smaller with the advent of technologies that put people from across the globe in the palm of one’s hand. And as the world has shrunk, it has also demanded that things happen ever faster – including the time it takes to charge an electronic device.

A cross-campus collaboration led by Ulrich Wiesner, Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science at Cornell University, addresses this demand with a novel energy storage device architecture that has the potential for lightning-quick charges.

The group’s idea: Instead of having the batteries’ anode and cathode on either side of a nonconducting separator, intertwine the components in a self-assembling, 3D gyroidal structure, with thousands of nanoscale pores filled with the components necessary for energy storage and delivery.

A rendering of the 3D battery architecture (top; not to scale) with interpenetrating anode (grey, with minus sign), separator (green), and cathode (blue, plus sign), each about 20 nanometers in size. Below are their respective molecular structures

“This three-dimensional architecture basically eliminates all losses from dead volume in your device,” Wiesner said. “More importantly, shrinking the dimensions of these interpenetrated domains down to the nanoscale, as we did, gives you orders of magnitude higher power density. In other words, you can access the energy in much shorter times than what’s usually done with conventional battery architectures.”

How fast is that? Wiesner said that, due to the dimensions of the battery’s elements being shrunk down to the nanoscale, “by the time you put your cable into the socket, in seconds, perhaps even faster, the battery would be charged.”

The architecture for this concept is based on block copolymer self-assembly, which the Wiesner group has employed for years in other devices, including a gyroidal solar cell and a gyroidal superconductor. Joerg Werner, Ph.D. ’15, lead author on this work, had experimented with self-assembling filtration membranes, and wondered if the same principles could be applied to carbon materials for energy storage.

At DESY‘s X-ray light source PETRA III, a team led by Swedish researchers has produced the strongest bio-material that has ever been made. The artifical, but bio-degradable cellulose fibres are stronger than steel and even than dragline spider silk, which is usually considered the strongest bio-based material. The team headed by Daniel Söderberg from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm reports the work in the journal ACS Nano of the American Chemical Society. The ultrastrong material is made of cellulose nanofibres (CNF), the essential building blocks of wood and other plant life. Using a novel production method, the researchers have successfully transferred the unique mechanical properties of these nanofibres to a macroscopic, lightweight material that could be used as an eco-friendlyalternative for plastic in airplanes, cars, furniture and other products.

The resulting fibre seen with a scanning electron microscope (SEM)

“Our new material even has potential for biomedicine since cellulose is not rejected by your body”, explains Söderberg.

The scientists started with commercially available cellulose nanofibres that are just 2 to 5 nanometres in diameter and up to 700 nanometres long. A nanometre (nm) is a millionth of a millimetre. The nanofibres were suspended in water and fed into a small channel, just one millimetre wide and milled in steel. Through two pairs of perpendicular inflows additional deionized water and water with a low pH-value entered the channel from the sides, squeezing the stream of nanofibres together and accelerating it.

This process, called hydrodynamic focussing, helped to align the nanofibres in the right direction as well as their self-organisation into a well-packed macroscopic thread. No glue or any other component is needed, the nanofibres assemble into a tight thread held together by supramolecular forces between the nanofibres, for example electrostatic and Van der Waals forces.

Consumer passenger flight could be the next industry that’s transformed by electric powertrains, and Seattle’sZunum Aero wants to be at the forefront of that change. The Seattle-based company, which is backed by Boeing’s HorizonX fund and Jet Blue’s Technology Ventures, has a plan to change the fundamental economics of regional flight, and shift the economics of air travel on a path towards eventual fully electric flight.

The first Zunum aircraft is designed for regional service, with seating for 12 passengers and a delivery window starting in 2022. The economics are potentially game-changing, with operating expenses of around $260 per hour for the aircraft. With a max cruise stepped of 340 miles per hour (547 km/h) in the air, a take-off distance of 2,200 feet (671 meters), a total hybrid-electric range of 700 miles(1127 km), which it hopes to scale to over 1,000 (1610 km) )in time and 80 percent lower noise and emissions vs. traditional regional planes, Zunum is position its airplane as the perfect way to light up under-utilized regional airports across the U.S., providing affordable and efficient commuter flights where economic realities have made running regular service impractical.

“In the past, very intentionally, we were quiet about operating costs, because it’s just shockingly low what you can get with an electric. So that you can get an aircraft of a size that could never compete with an airliner that can get you below commercial fares,” Zunum Aero CEO Ashish Kumar told in an interview. He put the cost per seat operating expenses at around 8 cents per mile. “That’s about one-tenth the operating cost of a business jet per hour,” he said.

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London, University of Cambridge and Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research have discovered how a pinch of salt can be used to drastically improve the performance of batteries. Surprisingly, the salt reacted with the sponge in special ways and turned it from a homogeneous mass to an intricate structure with fibres, struts, pillars and webs. This kind of 3D hierarchically organised carbon structure has proven very difficult to grow in a laboratory but is crucial in providing unimpeded ion transport to active sites in a battery. In the study, published in JACS (Journal of the American Chemical Society), the researchers demonstrate that the use of these materials in Lithium-ion batteries not only enables the batteries to be charged-up rapidly, but also at one of the highest capacities.

Due to their intricate architecture the researchers have termed these structures ‘nano-diatoms’, and believe they could also be used in energy storage and conversion, for example as electrocatalysts for hydrogen production.

“This metamorphosis only happens when we heat the compounds to 800 degrees centigrade and was as unexpected as hatching fire-born dragons instead of getting baked eggs in the Game of Thrones. It is very satisfying that after the initial surprise, we have also discovered how to control the transformations with chemical composition,” said lead author Dr Stoyan Smoukov, from Queen Mary’s School of Engineering and Materials Science.

Male fruit flies enjoy orgasms more than alcohol – and Israeli researchers who tested the insects’ addiction to pleasure hope to apply their discovery to controlling human substance abuse. Scientists from Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv exposed the flies to a red light that activated a protein, corazonim (CRZ), in the abdomen that triggers ejaculation.

Galit Shohat-Ophir, who headed the team, said they then tested how repeated ejaculation affected the flies’ desires for other pleasures, such as alcohol-spiked liquid. Flies that orgasmed, as opposed to a control group that had not been stimulated, shunned the alcohol, preferring to congregate in the “red light district” because “it feels good” there, said Shir Zer Krispil, who led the study.

The scientists, whose research was published in the journal Current Biology, surmised that substance abuse in humans could be moderated by other rewards – not necessarily of a sexual nature – that are naturally available, such as social interaction or sports.

“In experiences where there is high reward level by natural reward – alcohol as a drug reward is not valuable,” Shohat-Ophir said.

Researchers in UConn’s Institute of Materials Science significantly improved the performance of an atomically thin semiconductor material by stretching it, an accomplishment that could prove beneficial to engineers designing the next generation of flexible electronics, nano devices, and optical sensors.

In a study appearing in the research journal Nano Letters, Michael Pettes, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, reports that a six-atom thick bilayer of tungsten diselenide exhibited a 100-fold increase in photoluminescence when it was subjected to strain. The material had never exhibited such photoluminescence before.

The findings mark the first time scientists have been able to conclusively show that the properties of atomically thin materials can be mechanically manipulated to enhance their performance, Pettes says. Such capabilities could lead to faster computer processors and more efficient sensors.

The process the researchers used to achieve the outcome is also significant in that it offers a reliable new methodology for measuring the impact of strain on ultrathin materials, something that has been difficult to do and a hindrance to innovation.

“Experiments involving strain are often criticized since the strain experienced by these atomically thin materials is difficult to determine and often speculated as being incorrect,” says Pettes. “Our study provides a new methodology for conducting strain-dependent measurements of ultrathin materials, and this is important because strain is predicted to offer orders of magnitude changes in the properties of these materials across many different scientific fields.”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A fossilized skull of a small critter found in Utah underneath a dinosaur foot bone is providing insight into one of the most primitive mammalian groups and has scientists rethinking the timing of the break-up of Earth's bygone supercontinent Pangaea.

LONDON (Reuters) - A global team of scientists plans to scour the icy depths of Loch Ness next month using environmental DNA (eDNA) in an experiment that may discover whether Scotland's fabled monster really does, or did, exist.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An "alien asteroid" that circles the sun in the giant gas planet Jupiter's orbital path, but hurtling in the opposite direction, is the first-known permanent resident of our solar system that astronomers have concluded originated in another star system.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China launched a relay satellite early on Monday designed to establish a communication link between earth and a planned lunar probe that will explore the dark side of the moon, the official Xinhua news agency said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A fresh examination of Chinese ceramics and other cargo from an important Java Sea shipwreck has led researchers to conclude that the vessel sank a century earlier than previously thought, providing insight into Asia's maritime trade more than 800 years ago.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China launched its first privately developed rocket from a launchpad in northwestern China on Thursday, state media said, the latest milestone in the country's ambitious space exploration program.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of lizards inhabiting the island of New Guinea boasts one of the most exotic traits of any animal: green blood. And scientists have been trying hard to figure out what benefit this characteristic -- caused by high levels of an ordinarily toxic green bile pigment -- may give them.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After detecting a whiff of oxygen, astronomers have determined that stars in a faraway galaxy formed 250 million years after the Big Bang -- a rather short time in cosmic terms -- in a finding that sheds light on conditions in the early universe.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new look at old data is giving scientists a fresh reason to view Europa, a moon of Jupiter, as a leading candidate in the search for life beyond Earth, with evidence of water plumes shooting into space.

LONDON (Reuters) - Stephen Hawking's family have invited time travelers to his memorial service, seeking to tackle one of the curiosities that eluded the British physicist during his extraordinary life.

NASA's launch of the Mars Science Laboratory -- hampered by technical difficulties and cost overruns -- has been delayed until the fall of 2011, NASA officials said at a news conference Thursday in Washington.

There has been much confusion and misinformation in recent weeks about our Consumer Products Inventory (CPI). Much of this confusion was sparked by a recent report from Friends of the Earth (FOE) on nanoscale materials in food, as well as news articles from Mother Jones and other outlets focused in on the use of nanoscale […]

The updated Nanotechnology Consumer Products Inventory now contains 1,628 consumer products that have been introduced to the market since 2005, representing a 24 percent increase since the last update in 2010. In addition to finding new products introduced to the market, the newly re-launched inventory seeks to address scientific uncertainty with contributions from those involved […]

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health are taking public comment on their plans for a new exposure assessment and epidemiological study of U.S. workers that are exposed to carbon nanotubes and nanofibers.

The Food & Drug Administration has released two new guidance documents for public comment outlining agency policy for the use of nanotechnology in food ingredients and packaging and the use of nanotechnology in cosmetic products.

The European Commission’s Science in Society Programme reflects on how to proceed towards Responsible Research and Innovation in the Information and Communication Technologies and Security Technology fields.

Today the Food Standards Authority issued a report on consumer attitudes to the use of nanotechnology in Food, drinks and other related products such as processing and packaging. The results, based on focus group studies, suggest that the public perception of nanotechnology in food is not negative, and is based on weighing up the benefits […]

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) have just posted a new video on the safe development of nanotechnology, featuring former PEN Science Advisor Andrew Maynard, as part of their series of nano educational podcasts.

A new PEN report provides the first ever analysis of voluntary initiatives to regulate nanotechnology. As nanotechnologies move forward, along with other emerging technologies, voluntary programs will play an important role in the governance portfolio available to the federal government as well as states and municipalities.

AOL News published a three part series on nanotechnology. “Nanotechnology has long been hyped for its potential to cure diseases, ease energy problems, supercharge our computers and more. But increasing evidence shows that the engineered particles could pose a giant risk to the environment and human life.”

A new paper makes a case for organizing collective responsibility through instruments beyond the regulatory system, such as codes of conduct and various deliberative assessment mechanisms within and outside the policy context.

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PARIS (Reuters) - Advertising group Publicis will unveil its internal collaborative network "Marcel" on Thursday and hopes to have 90 percent of its staff using it by 2020, in a move designed to improve the interaction between Publicis' various agencies.

(Reuters) - Lawyers for Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser for U.S. President Donald Trump, have sent out more than 40 subpoenas to internet service providers, lobbying firms and others in an escalating legal fight against Qatar for allegedly hacking into his emails, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Indonesian ride-hailing and online payment firm Go-Jek on Thursday said it would enter Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines in the next few months, investing $500 million in its international push.

TORONTO/KIEV (Reuters) - The U.S. government said late on Wednesday that it would seek to wrestle hundreds of thousands of infected routers and storage devices from the control of hackers who security researchers warned were planning to use the "botnet" to attack Ukraine.

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Amazon Web Services is looking to invest in Chile for the long-term as part of a larger Latin American expansion plan, a senior executive said on Wednesday after meeting with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Uber cut its losses almost in half and its ride bookings jumped 51 percent since one year ago, the Silicon Valley ride-services firm said on Wednesday, showing that months of scandal and retreating from overseas markets have not slowed its business.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Negative news stories about Tesla Inc have hit "fever pitch", but the electric carmaker's stock price is likely to surge as output of its Model 3 sedan improves, according to an analyst research report.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Facebook is unlikely to compensate the 2.7 million European users whose data was improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica because sensitive bank account data had not been shared, the company said on Wednesday.

(Reuters) - Tesla Inc's Model 3 sedan recorded more registrations in California than its class rivals BMW 3-Series and Mercedes C-Class in the first quarter, according to a report by the California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA). Model 3 registrations totaled 3,723, or 14.3 percent of the near-luxury segment, compared with 3,323 for the Mercedes […]

CISCO's cyber intelligence unit Talos on Wednesday saying hackers have infected at least half a million routers and storage devices in dozens of countries around the world for a possible cyber attack on Ukraine next month.

A British university student has created a range of water-colour paints made from discarded cosmetics, which she calls an example of how the so-called 'circular economy' can help improve the environment.

Using data collected from underwater drones, merchant ships, fishing boats and even explorers, a new scientific project aims to map out the ocean floor by 2030 and solve one of the world's enduring mysteries. Stuart McDill reports.

British game maker Bossa Studios releases Worlds Adrift, an ambitious adventure game designed that has taken three years and the up-front involvement of 50,000 gamers to create. Stuart McDill was at the launch.

Microsoft under CEO Satya Nadella has refocussed to double down on enterprise, artificial intelligence and cloud services, and today the company took the wraps a new project for advertising giant Publicis that shows how it is leveraging all three to expand its business. At an event in Paris, the CEOs of the two companies unveiled […]

TechCrunch scoured all of Europe to find the most innovative and disruptive early-stage startups to launch at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Europe 2018 at VivaTech. And today starting at 9:05 am CET on the TechCrunch homepage you can watch the pitches from the latest 15 Startup Battlefield companies. Each company will pitch for six minutes on […]

Of all of the visions of the future that have been rolled out over the years, perhaps none have had as persistent a hold on the imagination as flying cars (well… maybe jetpacks… But flying cars are right up there). As these technologies move from the realms of the plausible to the probable, they’re finding […]

There’s good news for consumers in Southeast Asia who are feeling the void after Uber left the region. That’s because Go-Jek, the Indonesia-based ride-hailing company backed by Google, Tencent and others, has officially announced plans to move into four new markets. Go-Jek said today it will move into Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines initially […]

Fintech startup Revolut is adding Bitcoin Cash and Ripple to its cryptocurrency feature. While cryptocurrency isn’t really Revolut’s focus point, it’s a good way to get started with cryptocurrencies. If you have a Revolut account, you can now buy and hold Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Bitcoin Cash. Behind the scene, the startup has partnered […]

You’ll soon have more options for staying secure on Facebook with two-factor authentication. Facebook is simplifying the process for two-factor verification on its platform so you won’t have to give the company your phone number just to bring additional security to your device. The company announced today that it is adding support for third-party authentication […]

Square, the company that provides payments and other business services to merchants, is today taking another step in its gradual expansion outside of the U.S. Stand — one of Square’s key pieces of hardware, turning an iPad into a point of sale system — is launching in the U.K. It will sell for £64 (+VAT) […]

Apple has decided to work with Volkswagen for some of its self-driving car efforts, The New York Times reported today. The plan, according to the NYT, is to turn some of Volkswagen’s T6 Transporter vans into autonomous shuttles for employees. However, this project is reportedly behind schedule and taking up much of the time of […]

Tinder will now help you find matches with those people you may cross paths with in your day-to-day life. As promised earlier, the company today is announcing the launch of a new location-based feature that will narrow your list of potential dating prospects to those who hit up your same bar for after-work drinks, or […]

Betaworks is hosting TechCrunch’s Include Office Hours for the month of May. For the first time ever, Include Office Hours will be bi-coastal — held in San Francisco and New York on the same day at 2pm local time at each location. On Tuesday, May 29th, partners Peter Rojas and Matt Hartman will be meeting with startup […]

Investing in initial coin offerings, or ICOs, is a minefield. This isn’t just true for people with absolutely no technical background but also for many investors who may be well-versed in tech but still struggle to understand many projects’ white papers. Enter TruStory, a platform for users to research and validate claims that people make […]

Uber’s CEO is in Paris this week meeting with the French president to talk tech in Europe and expanding its insurance coverage in the region, but back in the U.S. the company is moving ahead on another kind of expansion. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Uber is raising another secondary round of funding of up […]

Elon Musk has, as I imagine he often does during meetings or long car rides, come up with an idea for a new thing. Unlike the HyperLoop, which was cool, and various space-related ideas, which we know he's at least partly expert about, this one is just plain bad. It's basically Yelp But For Journalism.

GUN is an open-source decentralized database service that allows developers to build fast peer-to-peer applications that will work, even when their users are offline. The company behind the project (which should probably change its name and logo…) today announced that it has raised just over $1.5 million in a seed round led by Draper Associates. […]

A uniquely 21st-century constitutional question received a satisfying answer today from a federal judge: President Trump cannot block people on Twitter, as it constitutes a violation of their First Amendment rights. The court also ruled he must unblock all previously blocked users. "No government official is above the law," the judge concluded.

On the same day that Spotify’s class-action settlement with musicians gets final approval, the company is making a big push to encourage artists to participate on its streaming service – in this case, by offering them a host of educational material to help them get started. The streaming service today is launching its own video series […]

Uber, which had already pulled its autonomous cars off the road following a fatal crash in Tempe, Arizona, is officially calling it quits in the state of Arizona, The Wall Street Journal first reported, citing an internal memo from Uber Advanced Technologies Group lead Eric Meyhofer. As part of the wind-down, Uber has let go […]

Samsung’s AR Emojis were met with a…lukewarm reception when they launched alongside the Galaxy S9. The augmented reality avatars were regarded as a me-too response to Apple’s Animojis — and more to the point, were downright creepy. But at launch, the company brought one key element to the offering that Apple hasn’t: a content partnership. […]

A slew of well-funded new entrants backed by massive amounts of capital are chasing Tesla’s lead in an effort to power the next generation of the electric vehicle industry. Electric vehicle startups have raised more than $2 billion in the U.S. over the first months of 2018 alone, a huge increase over the $650 million […]

New sodium-based all-solid-state batteries could enable future energy storage devices using only the easy-to-access, cheap and earth abundant elements sodium, silicon and phosphorous (Na, Si and P). By shaping them into sodium phosphidosilicates containing large supertetrahedral entities, scientists generated solid electrolytes with very high ionic conductivity.

Scientists have introduced a new strategy for control through altering pH value. It is based on ethylenediamine, which only supports the assembly of DNA components in a neutral to acidic environment - independent of the base sequences and without metal ions.

Depending on the lighting, the surface of appropriately crafted nanoparticles can change its topography. Researchers have shown that the molecular mechanism they have designed makes it possible, by the use of light, to effectively uncover or hide catalyst molecules. The technique they present leads to qualitatively new possibilities to control the course of chemical reactions.

Scientists demonstrated that scanning photocurrent microscopy could provide the optoelectronic information needed to improve the performance of devices for power generation, communications, data storage, and lighting.

Researchers applied a technique using 3D X-ray tomography of an electrode to better understand what is happening on the inside of a lithium ion battery and ultimately build batteries with more storage capacity and longer life.

Very different from piezoelectric and other energy harvesting technologies, new research shows that water vapor or moisture expand the range of natural phenomena that can be used to generate electric power. Researchers demonstrate that moisture, a vast kind of resource existing ubiquitously on earth and in biological organisms, can be exploited as a novel harvestable […]